Have we had Housman?

A "flambeaux" is a flaming torch. So the leaves of the chestnut tree have turned yellow. The scenario is that they are in a pub in summer because they can't work because of the weather.

A.E. Housman - The Chestnut Casts His Flambeaux

The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers
Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away,
The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.
Pass me the can, lad; there's an end of May.

There's one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot,
One season ruined of your little store.
May will be fine next year as like as not:
But ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.

We for a certainty are not the first
Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed
Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.

It is in truth iniquity on high
To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave,
And mar the merriment as you and I
Fare on our long fool's-errand to the grave.

Iniquity it is; but pass the can.
My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore;
Our only portion is the estate of man:
We want the moon, but we shall get no more.

If here to-day the cloud of thunder lours
To-morrow it will hie on far behests;
The flesh will grieve on other bones than ours
Soon, and the soul will mourn in other breasts.

The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

************************************

The last stanza is a classic - your troubles are from eternity, and they are not about to go away, but

"Bear them we can, and if we can we must
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale".

Jesus, how good is that?

i carry your heart with me - e e cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

In respect to the previous 9 pages of beautiful poetry, I've deleted a few posts. This is not to say that the offending posts are not poetic, amusing or inaccurate, simply that the NAAFI is a better place for them than this thread.

The moderator has spoken
some posts he has taken
but from all the readers remaining
there should be no more complaining

I thank you.

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours


The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours


A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause


For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours
And yours

Leo Marks

More Housman:

He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?

He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?
He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder,
And went with half my life about my ways.

Into my heart an air that kills

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.


Here dead lie we because we did not choose

Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.

On a windswept hillide,
Watching the endless sea,
A black cloud o'er me,
While others walk under blue skies.

This is where the lonely see their fate,
While the happy see sunshine,
A darkened heart finds warmth only in the night,
And shuns the day with it's lies

Has anyone posted this one from John Betjeman, the late and some would say greatest Poet Lauriet:

Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

Her father's euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o'clock news and a lime-juice and gin.

The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

The Hillman is waiting, the light's in the hall,
The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
And there on the landing's the light on your hair.

By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
Oh! Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.

And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

From the Book of Tourettes Tomes

( shamelessly stolen from another site)

OLD MACDONALD HAD A FARM

EEII EEII CNUT.

Thou art an artless, base-court apple-john,
Beslubb'ring all whose gaze thou looks upon,
Thou bootless, beatle-headed, bladder bug,
Churlishly boil-brained, clapper-clawed old slug!
Thou art so common-kissing, canker-clawed,
Dissembling, dizzy-eyed and mealy-mawed!
Thy dankish, dismal-dreaming, clotpoled ways
Are more errant, in thy unmuzzled daze,
Than any foot-licked, flea-bit flap-dragon,
Or gleeking, half-faced, hedge-pigged jothead on
A paunchy, ill-bred, loutish miscreant -
Thou ever moldwarped, spleeny sycophant!
Were thou less blind in thy bummed, venomed spleen,
Thou wouldst know very well ... it's thee I mean!

Mary Grace Dembeck

'Matilda Who Told Lies, And Was Burned to Death' - Hillaire Belloc

Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes;
Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,
Attempted to Believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her,
And would have done so, had not She
Discovered this Infirmity.

For once, towards the Close of Day,
Matilda, growing tired of play,
And finding she was left alone,
Went tiptoe to the Telephone
And summoned the Immediate Aid
Of London's Noble Fire-Brigade.

Within an hour the Gallant Band
Were pouring in on every hand,
From Putney, Hackney Downs, and Bow
With Courage high and Hearts aglow
They galloped, roaring through the Town,
'Matilda's House is Burning Down!'

Inspired by British Cheers and Loud
Proceeding from the Frenzied Crowd,
They ran their ladders through a score
Of windows on the Ball Room Floor;
And took Peculiar Pains to Souse
The Pictures up and down the House,

Until Matilda's Aunt succeeded
In showing them they were not needed;
And even then she had to pay
To get the Men to go away! . . . .

It happened that a few Weeks later
Her Aunt was off to the Theatre
To see that Interesting Play
The Second Mrs Tanqueray.
She had refused to take her
Niece To hear this entertaining Piece:
A Deprivation Just and Wise
To Punish her for Telling Lies.

That Night a Fire did break out -
You should have heard Matilda Shout!
You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,
And throw the window up and call
To People passing in the Street -

(The rapidly increasing Heat
Encouraging her to obtain
Their confidence) - but all in vain!
For every time She shouted 'Fire!'
They only answered 'Little Liar'!
And therefore when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the House, were Burned.

Ah yes, Matilda! Two more such 'Cautionary Tales' favourites were from Harry Graham's Ruthless Rhymes:

Father heard his children scream
So he threw them in the stream
Saying, as he drowned the third,
"Children should be seen, not heard!"

and, with a cool(?) nod to the Orange Order:

Billy, in one of his nice new sashes,
Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes;
Now, although the room grows chilly,
I haven’t the heart to poke poor Billy.

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn
To whom evil is done
Do evil in return

WH Auden

Thought I'd try a poem, it's not great but it's my first attempt.

The Casualty

Another flight to Sangin,
To bring back what was lost
We picked up three times casualties
A mess of blood and dust

Panthers claw in full swing
Rounds hitting everywhere
We carried them to the Chinook
It's safer in the air

Your eyes were still wide open
Your face a ghostly stare
In the confusion I didn't notice,
That your mate was sat right there.

So I covered what was left
With a bag made for a bin
Oh what shame I felt
When here lies a fallen King.

We climbed above a contact
And as the rotors spinned
I had to grab the bag
Almost lost it in the wind

So I held the bag around you
Your name to me unknown
But I'm proud I held you brother
For your final journey home.


I found out the name of the name of the guy when I went to his vigil in camp bastion, but won't mention it here for obvious reasons.

A BOY CALLED ENIS (or DONJI VAKUF)

The dismal evening whithers and the roseatte dawn breaks through.
The snow a distant memory, cherished only by the mountains.
The fields lie fallow, the illusion of green,
Belied by their bitter harvest, fed with blood.

While the factory breathes the heady fumes of peace,
Outside the walls the town lies broken and seethes.
No gunshots now, no bombs, no words,
But hate clouds the cafes and makes new mothers weep.

The hummocks where the grass grows lushest,
Stand like hoos to ancient Kings,
But we know the truth,
We, and the children, and the flies.

An empty land, cursed by history and passion,
Is lit up in flames by your shining, hazel eyes.
An angel born of heaven's triple glory,
Even as here, God counts his regrets, and dies.

Copyright - me.

Cressage (Christ's Oak)

It's early Spring at Cressage, the days are warm and bright,
There's blossom on the blackthorn; wild flowers bloom left and right.
A white bridge stands, majestic, astride the Severn's flow.
Old pillboxes keep their vigil, still waiting for the foe.
The trees and the grass are greening, there's a fresh scent in the air
And hark, the village children, in the school yard over there........

God bless this rural England and keep it safe from harm.
Preserve its ancient beauty and maintain its rustic charm,
For something deep within me stirs to see it all this way.
And I would give my life for England before an enemy held sway.

I don't think you'll have too many problems in that department.

The Early Purges


I was six when I first saw kittens drown.
Dan Taggart pitched them, 'the scraggy wee shits',
Into a bucket; a frail metal sound,

Soft paws scraping like mad. But their tiny din
Was soon soused. They were slung on the snout
Of the pump and the water pumped in.

'Sure, isn't it better for them now?' Dan said.
Like wet gloves they bobbed and shone till he sluiced
Them out on the dunghill, glossy and dead.

Suddenly frightened, for days I sadly hung
Round the yard, watching the three sogged remains
Turn mealy and crisp as old summer dung

Until I forgot them. But the fear came back
When Dan trapped big rats, snared rabbits, shot crows
Or, with a sickening tug, pulled old hens' necks.

Still, living displaces false sentiments
And now, when shrill pups are prodded to drown
I just shrug, 'Bloody pups'. It makes sense:

'Prevention of cruelty' talk cuts ice in town
Where they consider death unnatural
But on well-run farms pests have to be kept down.



Seamus Heaney.